Quote:
Originally Posted by Future Mayor
Look at you being all sorts of positive on this project
While I sit here and be sinacle about the whole thing.
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Lol. Well don't get me wrong I could certainly tear it apart on many levels. But in the end its necessary to take a step back and realize that even your suburban big box ill-planned shopping centers are starting to be better than those in development around the rest of the country.
I cringe at the vast parking lot and lack of residential, but we can't forget that shopping centers do have the ability to morph, change and adapt through time, like the Gateway is starting to and probably will continue to. Even when Station Park is built as is currently planned, this piece of land still holds a lot of potential for its developer and for the residents of Farmington.
Namely, at first I was the most confused and disheartend by the fact that there was nearly NOTHING focused around the actual Frontrunner stop at all on the site plan. But after thinking about it for a while, I think it's very possible that the developer purposefully left this portion of the parcel as open parking to reserve it for future residential development once the rest of the development is up and running and hopefully financing is easier to procure for a residential addtion. I think this especially plausible considering the original plans did call for residential but were nixed after market concerns. The fact that they even had residential in the plans at one point demonstrates that they are open to and possibly even still desiring to have it as a component of Station Park at some point.
Imagine condos and apartments fronting the commuter rail station with groundfloor retail serving as a gateway into the central shopping district of Station Park. Could be really cool down the road, and the parking around the station makes it possible.
Hell if they don't develop it down the road, you and I Future Mayor can slap together a proposal to develop it for them!
So yeah, I guess you could say I'm trying to look at the development in a positive light. At worst, even sans residential, it's still better than Vestar's similar "amazing" developments here in Phoenix. Lol. So many people here have no clue what good development is.
Cheers!!